Page 100 of Your Fault

But what I found was a totally different pair of eyes. He was the furthest thing from Nick, but Amber was right: he wouldn’t take his eyes off me. He was tall and blond and wielded his pool cue like an extension of his own body. Something about him seemed weirdly familiar. But I looked away from him to concentrate on my friends.

“Maybe he’s from one of my classes, but I don’t know, honestly,” I said with a shrug.

Jenna looked over at him, uninterested in being subtle. “I’ve seen that dude. I think he was coming out of the biology building. He’s no freshman, I’ll tell you that. He might even be a professor… Maybe he can teach you a thing or two…!”

I knew what she was insinuating. To hell with that.

He was bent over the table, his hair in his face, concentrated on the game, his eye on the ball, and that allowed me to look at him closer. No, he wasn’t a teacher; he was too young for that, although he definitely wasn’t a freshman either. I racked my brain trying to figure out who he was, but it was impossible. A few minutes later, we’d changed the subject and were talking about other nonsense.

“Hey, can you get me another drink?” Jenna asked Amber.

While she went to the bar, I decided to wait for the bathroom. To get there, I had to walk past the pool table. I had forgotten about the guy there already, and so, when he got in front of me, making me stop in my tracks, I was surprised.

“Hey,” he said simply, with a curious expression.

“Hi,” I responded, looking at his face and remembering right then where I’d seen him: at that party I’d gone to with Jenna the night Nick had come back from San Francisco and taken me home with him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I just… You were with my brother at a party a few days ago, right?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a class together,” I said.

He nodded. I didn’t remember his name, but I did remember his bad attitude when he’d confronted us.

“I’d love to ask you a favor. My brother is an expert in disappearing acts, and I haven’t seen a sign of life from him in a while. If you run into him in class, can you tell him to call me? It’s important.”

I said yes. He pulled out his wallet, looking for something.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but I don’t know anyone he hangs out with… If you see him acting weird or he looks like something’s wrong, could you call me at this number?”

I grabbed his card. “Of course, don’t worry,” I said, seeing genuine worry on his face. “Nothing’s wrong with him, is it?”

Charlie was too cool to lose as a friend. Thanks to him, I’d laughed more in those past few days than I had in ages. He seemed to always be in a good mood. I loved that. And he was capable of laughing at everyone, even himself, without the least trace of cruelty.

His brother smiled tight-lipped, hinting that he preferred not to talk about it. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

His response struck me as curt, but his voice was so sincere and friendly that I couldn’t help but smile back as he turned to his game.

I looked down, read the card, and shivered.

MICHAEL O’NEIL

PSYCHOLOGIST

(323) 634-7721

I went back to my dorm soon after. I was tired, and I kept thinking about what Charlie’s brother had said. Getting a psychologist: that was on my list of things to do. Nick had asked me to do it, for him, and I’d agreed, but I hated having to open up to a stranger and tell him all my fears and secrets. It wasn’t easy for me to talk about my problems, especially with someone I didn’t even know. Still, my nightmares hadn’t gone away, I was still scared of the dark, and I knew I couldn’t keep putting it off forever. But what if they analyzed me, judged me, told me I was crazy? My mother had tried to take me to see a therapist before, I’d even gone when I was little, but all I did was cry so much in the office that she’d finally let it go, buying me nightlights for my room and calling it a day. The nightmares, though, those were new, something that had only come about after my father’s death.

I got into bed and looked at the card again. Was this a sign? This Michael seemed like a good guy, and more importantly, he wasn’t too old. I felt better about that because our therapy sessions could be more like simple conversations between friends. I wanted to talk with Charlie first, though, plus I wanted to ask why his brother was worried about him, even if I wasn’t sure I was ready for us to share our problems with each other.

I knew if I ended up opening up to him, I’d just look for some excuse why his brother wouldn’t be a good therapist for me, so finally I decided to call Michael directly and ask his thoughts. I did so the next day, after my morning classes, when I had a bit of free time. I told him my problem in a rough outline, without going into details. He told me he’d been working for the university as a campus psychologist for two years now. He encouraged me to stop by his office. I didn’t know what to tell him about Charlie. He hadn’t been to class, but I knew he wasn’t much of a morning person.

I was jittery but also relieved that I had taken that step, smallas it might have been. Now I just had to go and see how it was, if I felt comfortable talking with him about my issues.

I spent the rest of the morning in a café close to the English department. I was nauseated, just shy of frantic, as I ordered a coffee and took out one of my required books. It wasn’t the most pleasant place, so I picked one of the more isolated tables.

After a while, I got a strange feeling. I looked up, and there he was: Nick, with a to-go cup of coffee in his hand and his Mac under his arm. It was as if my body were capable of sensing him. Worse, I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. There were five girls at the table next to me who had been chatting the whole time but who now lowered their voices to whispers as they gawked at him. And they were far from the only ones, as I could tell with my full view of the café. Nick wove his way between the tables and sat down with a group of guys who gave him the usual friendly claps on the back.

“Jesus, he’s incredible! Just seeing him is giving me the shivers,” one of the girls next to me said, making me immediately tense.

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