Jim - Twenty

Jim

            That was the first time I ever spent the night with Rebecca. Now that I know what was happening in the dorm that night, I seriously think it might have been God who made me fall asleep in her bed. I could have ruined everything by going back to the room, not to mention I might have had to shoot myself. But I’ll get to that.

            It may have been the first time I spent the night with her, but it was the second time I ever woke up with Rebecca trying frantically to get me out of her room. “James, for God’s sake, wake up!” She gave me a shove and I started awake. It was late morning and I was sprawled diagonally across Rebecca’s bed with one leg dangling off the edge, naked. I’m sure it was not a pretty picture.

            I rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”

            “Too late.”

            I blinked groggily, trying to figure out why she was acting as crazy as she had the night I had met her. “I’m sorry, did I go back in time?” I sat on the edge of the bed and grinned back at her. “Because if this is two months ago, I can tell you to come back to bed and save us loads of time.” Rebecca responded by tossing my shirt at me, whipping me in the face with the sleeve.

            “Now is not the time, James,” she barked. “Put your pants on. You should not have slept here. Herschel could have walked right in.” I realized that, as usual, she was right. Even if Hersch had to find out about me and Rebecca, having him walk in on me sleeping naked in her bed did not exactly promise the best of all possible outcomes. I threw on my undershirt and rushed with my shirt buttons, doing them up unevenly.

I was completely dressed from the waist up before I realized my pants and underwear were nowhere to be seen. Rebecca, who had been getting dressed in the opposite corner of the room, glanced at me with a playful look. “Attractive,” she smiled teasingly before tossing me my underwear. She sure looked attractive, rolling up her stockings with one leg up on the chair, in her blue skirt and bra. Looking at her made me really, really not want to put on my pants. She knew the look in my eye. She pulled on her blouse, immediately shooting down my plan. “No. Not the time, James. We are telling Herschel today, remember?”

My stomach dropped; this could end so, so badly. I hadn’t remembered until right that moment, and as I put on my boxers I briefly considered jumping out the window. This was going to be hell. Again, Rebecca read me like a book. “Don’t look so worried. It will be all right.” She walked over and kissed me for a minute. She was being unrealistically optimistic, I realized, because she didn’t have another choice. Rebecca couldn’t let herself believe that she might have to choose between me and Hersch today. She let go of me with a sigh. “I am going downstairs for some breakfast. Wait a few minute before you leave so we don’t come down the stairs together. We will tell him in the dorm, after we’ve eaten, all right? Here,” she took my tie from her pocket and threw it over my shoulder.

I just nodded. Up until then, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell her what I really wanted to tell her. But as I watched her walk towards the door, I realized it was now or never. “Rebecca,” I called after her, “I want you to know, no matter what happens today, you know, with Hersch…”

“Yes?”

“Well, what I want to say, it’s that,” God, I was bad at this, “I… I’m going wherever you’re going. Hersch can stop you from coming with me, but he can’t stop me from following you.”

Rebecca smiled. “I know.” Of course she knew. She always knew. I went to the door and kissed her again, deep and long, so she would know I was telling the truth.

I kissed her forehead. “I just �" I wish…”

“I know,” Rebecca said again. “I wish we could just stay here too. But we have to keep moving, James. Wellington’s was not meant to last forever.” I knew she was right, but it didn’t make me feel better. I couldn’t cope with the end of all this. I loved Wellington’s, and everything it had given me. “All right, I will go find Herschel,” she said. She looked up at me again, and kissed me one more time, before walking out the door.

Alone in the room, I pulled on my pants and sat anxiously on the bed. This would probably be the toughest day of my life. I let a few minutes go by, letting the knots in my stomach tie themselves tighter until I decided I wouldn’t go to breakfast at all, since I would probably hurl all over the table anyway. I didn’t know then that I was already sitting in the eye of the storm, and that in about thirty seconds everything would literally spiral out of control.

I wondered for a minute what Gabe and Erich had done last night. I hoped they had worked things out �" as friends, I mean. It would only make this day a thousand times worse if they had to leave each other on bad terms.

It was exactly at that second that Gabe busted in. I sprung up, terrified out of my mind that it was Hersch. My adrenaline kept pumping even after I realized it was Gabe. He looked like the end of the world was coming.

“F**k, Moretti, what the hell?” My heart just about exploded in my chest.

“Is Rebecca here?” he pleaded.

“No, she went down to breakfast. I �" what happened to you?” Christ, he looked like hell. His lips were a weird shade of bruised purple, and the collar of his uniform shirt had been just about torn off. His clothes were stained with sweat and something else that I couldn’t quite make out. His hands were shaking and his eyes were swollen, like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep or had been crying. This was bad. “Christ, sit down, will you?”

Gabe paced a few steps in the doorway, not looking at me. “No. No, I can’t. I have to… I have to…” he turned around and bolted out the door, leaving me completely out of the loop.

I went after him. If Erich had beaten up on him, I was going to have something to say about it. “Gabe! Gabe, hold on!” I skidded after him, trying to chase him and put on my shoes at the same time. I only got a glimpse of his back as he turned the corner and pounded down the stairs. Man, he was walking funny. “Gabe!” I called again. “S**t,” it was useless. I leaned against the wall and reached down to shove my heel into my shoe.

And then I got hit by a truck. At least, that’s what it felt like. Something big and heavy knocked me down. All the blood rushed out of my head, and I lost my balance and toppled forwards. A gigantic sea of dots clouded my vision for a second, so I couldn’t really tell that someone was grabbing me by the collar and dragging me to my feet.

            “Skurwysyn! Ty cholerny drań!”

            Well it was one of two people at this school who spoke Polish. Oh, f**k. “Whoa! Whoa! Hersch, what the hell? Let go of me!”

            Hersch’s face twisted up and he slammed me against the wall. I was pretty sure he broke my lungs. With the wind knocked out of me, I couldn’t exactly do anything to stop him from punching me in the nose. I keeled over, pinching my bleeding nose. He had let go of me, and I used the opportunity to get far away from him. “Jesus! What the f**k is your problem?” I had a sinking feeling that I knew exactly what his problem was.

“You know! You know what you did,” Hersch pointed angrily at me, spitting his words out furiously. “You b*****d, you’ve been sleeping with Rebecca!” He charged at me again, grabbing me around the waist and shoving me back against the wall. I briefly tried to crawl over his shoulder �" he was a lot shorter than me, and I could almost make it.

I shoved him. “No I haven’t!” I lied without thinking about it.

“Don’t give me that. I saw you together!” He shoved me back.

“All right, all right!” I grabbed onto his arms and forced my way away from him again. “Just listen to me, Hersch, would you?” I stood, as sturdily as I could, between Hersch in the stairs, so he couldn’t get away.

“No! I won’t. I should never have listened to you in the first place.” Hersch was yelling now, reminding me that he sounded like the voice of God when he got loud enough. “I’m finished listening to you. I’m taking her home where we belong.” He pushed past me with no effort at all.

“Hersch, you can’t do that!”

“Don’t follow me, Banhart!” Hersch growled as he stormed down the stairs. “Don’t come near me or my sister again!”

“Hersch, listen!” I half tripped down the second flight of stairs; I was still only wearing one shoe. He wouldn’t stop, but I kept calling after him all the way down the hall. “Hersch, for f**k sake, talk to me!” We had reached our hallway.

Just as we turned the corner, Erich exploded out the door of the dorm, dragging his trunk, with Gabe two steps behind. “Erich, wait!” Gabe begged, chasing after him. I could tell something seriously bad had happened between them, but I had massively bigger problems at the moment. Goddamn it, everything was going to hell. Still, I figured God wasn’t trying his hardest to kill me, since Hersch and I had narrowly missed walking in on Gabe and Erich’s fight. If all four of us had it out in the room, I knew I wouldn’t be the one left standing.

Gabe reached for him. Erich spun around, and for a second I thought he looked like a mad dog. “Don’t you dare touch me or I swear I’ll �"” He pulled back his arm to punch Gabe, but suddenly realized that Hersch and I were witnesses. All four of us froze, looking nervously and angrily at each other. I was surprised the tension in that hallway wasn’t enough to smother the four of us. Erich snarled like an animal. “I’m getting the hell out of this place.”

“Right behind you,” Hersch growled.

“Like hell you are!” Hersch was inside the room before I could follow. He slammed the door in my face.  “Hersch. Hersch!” I pounded on the wood, and when he didn’t open up, I leaned my head dejectedly against the door. “F**k.” Gabe was headed down the hall after Erich, who was halfway outside.

“Erich, please!” No matter what their problem was, I could tell Gabe was fighting a losing fight.

“Hey Gabe,” I called down the hall. He looked anxiously back at me. He needed a friend right now, and even if I was otherwise occupied, I couldn’t help but feel for him. “Good luck.”

He looked sadly back at me and nodded before following Erich out the door.

I could hear Hersch angrily packing his things on the other side of the door. I weighed my options in a panic. I could go find Rebecca. She could talk sense into Hersch, couldn’t she? But by the time I found her, Hersch could be off the campus. Rebecca would have to find us. I couldn’t let Hersch out of my sight.

“Hersch,” I called through the door, “come on Hersch, talk to me. I can explain.” There was no answer. In frustration, I grabbed the doorknob in my fist and threw my weight against the door. “Goddamn it, Abrahamson, open up!” Unluckily for me, the door decided to open on the first try for the first time all semester, and I went crashing into the dorm. I landed hard on my elbow �" “s**t!” �" and jumped to my feet. Hersch had finished packing. He picked up the one suitcase he had brought here and slammed it shut.

“Get out of my way, Jim,” he growled.

“No.” I scrambled over to the door, holding my arms across the doorway so he couldn’t get by.

“Back off, Jim!”

“No!”

“I’m warning you!”

“No, Hersch, listen…”

Then I was on the ground. I realized from my stinging jaw that Hersch must have punched me again, but I missed it somehow. Hersch made a move like he would kick me, but he stopped short when I cowered like a baby. “You slept with my sister!” he yelled. His voice was still angry as hell, but I could hear the wounded tone now. He looked absolutely terrifying standing over me.  “You b*****d! I thought I could trust you. I thought you were my friend!”

“You idiot, I am your friend!” I got to my knees, clutching my jaw to make sure it wasn’t broken.

“Goddamn you. You know what she means to me. She’s all I have in the world. It’s my job to keep her safe!” Hersch started to pace, a bad sign that he was losing it.

“No it’s not!”

“You swore to me, Jim! You promised you would stay away from her. I trusted you, and you went behind my back with my sister!”

“I know, but…”

“But what?” The look on his face told me nothing I could have said could have turned this situation around. I just looked helplessly up at him from the floor. “I thought so,” he growled. “Get out of my way.”

Hersch shoved past me. Then I was angry. He hadn’t given me a chance to finish. Nothing in the world was going to change his mind, but that sure as hell didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. “But I love her.”

He stopped short of the hallway, bracing himself against the doorway. Hersch took a deep, angry breath, and I used the opportunity to get back to my feet. I wasn’t a fighter in any sense, so all I could think to do in case he hit me again was plant my feet as hard as I could. He didn’t hit me again, though. He spun around, and I realized with useless panic that I had only made him angrier.

“No you don’t,” Hersch seethed. He pointed angrily at me, then poked me hard in the chest. “You don’t even know what that word means.”

He turned back around, but I wasn’t letting him go that easy. “Oh, I think I do,” I said, as sarcastically as I could. If the only way to get him to stay was to make him madder, so be it.

Hersch wheeled around again. “You listen to me. Don’t ever pretend you’re in love in front of me.”

“Then tell me!”

“You want to know?” Hersch yelled. “Do you know how Kristen died? Two Germans came into our home looking for me and dragged her out into the street.”

“And she wouldn’t give you up and they shot her, I know, Erich told me! I’m sorry, okay?”

“No, you don’t know!” Hersch looked like he would hit me again. “I was in the goddamn resistance hideout, but I could hear her screaming from down the street. My friends held me back, because they knew I would give up the resistance to save her. The Germans were yelling for me to come out. They knew the hideout was nearby. They said they would kill her if she wouldn’t tell them where I was, or if I didn’t come out. And she was screaming too. She kept telling me to stay where I was. She didn’t want me to die saving her. I was screaming and screaming for them to let me go, but they wouldn’t, even after we heard the shot.” I could see it in my mind, Hersch straining in the grip of his friends, listening to Kristen scream, slumping to the ground at the sound of the gunshot.

“Rebecca was watching from the window. She tells me they wouldn’t have shot, if Kristen hadn’t been trying keep me from coming out. I had to punch Peter to get away. By the time I got there, they had given up and left her in the street.” Hersch tore off his glasses and pressed his fists to his eyes. I hadn’t seen him cry before. “They thought she was dead. So did I, when I got there. But they had gotten her in the stomach, and she was dying of blood loss. She was almost gone, when I found her. She couldn’t move at all. And… God, there was so much blood. But she opened her eyes and said, ‘don’t go after them, Herschel.’ I was too scared that the Germans would come back if they heard me, so I just rocked her and cried until she was gone.”

Hersch sat back on the bed, tossing his suitcase aside. “I should have listened to her. She was always right. But I just couldn’t let those monsters who had killed her get away. I chased after them, Jim. I moved through the alleys so they wouldn’t hear me coming, and when they walked by I took my knife and I put it between the shoulders of the one with the gun.”

I literally had to sit down. I felt like I had been hit by a train. Hersch had killed a man. “Did he… did he…?”

Hersch nodded. “I’d have killed the other one too. I got a hold of him and cut up his face and a piece of his ear. He tried to shoot me but I got the gun away from him.”

“How did you get away?”

 “How do you think? Rebecca came and pulled me away. We went through the sewer tunnels we had been using for the resistance, and the soldiers were chasing us, but I knew the tunnels better than anyone, and we lost them.”

I dropped into the chair, pressing a hand to my forehead, a little scared that my head might roll off from hearing what I had just heard. Hersch had really killed someone. “Hersch…”

Hersch put out a hand to stop me. “Don’t talk to me.” He looked scarier than Erich ever had, his face all screwed up, fists pressed to his mouth. I could tell he was so angry, seconds away from losing it.

“Hersch!”
            “No!” he sprung up and I practically tipped out of my chair trying to get away from him. “Do you get it now? You can’t love Rebecca! I was in love, Jim. I was! No one �" no one �" will ever be in love like I was! Rebecca can’t possibly love you, understand?”

“Hey!” suddenly I was almost as mad as he was. He could accuse me of not loving Rebecca, but if he told me she didn’t love me, he might as well have taken away everything that mattered to me. I knocked over the chair, secretly impressed with myself by how I could stand up to him. “Don’t speak for Rebecca! You don’t know anything about her.” I gave him a shove.

“No, you don’t know anything about her,” Hersch poked me in the chest again, and any pride I was feeling melted away. “You don’t have any idea what we went through, and Rebecca is with you because she doesn’t want to remember. She can act like nothing ever happened with you, because you don’t know. That’s what she wants from you, Jim. If you weren’t here it would have been someone else.”

I gave a strangled yell and sprang at him. “Take it back!” I shoved him hard and managed to knock him off balance. “You b*****d, take it back!” Hersch caught himself against the bunk and shoved me back.

“Get out of my way, Jim. I’m going to find her.” Hersch grabbed his suitcase off the bunk and pushed past me towards the door.

“Yeah, you just see what she says!” I called after him with more confidence than I was actually feeling. Hersch was right about everything, but I couldn’t let him be right about Rebecca. “What’s your plan if she won’t go with you?”

“She will.”

“No! I’m not letting you take her back there!” Hersch had a good three paces on me, but he suddenly swung backwards to face me.

“What say do you have?” he yelled an inch away from my face, practically bursting my eardrums. “You think I’m going to listen to the guy who fucked my sister I didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face?”

“I’m going wherever she goes, Hersch! I swear to God I’ll follow you back to Poland!” I would do it, now more than ever, if only to prove him wrong.

“Like hell you are!” Hersch was at the door, reaching back to slam it behind him.

I chased after him, but by the time I got the door open he was halfway down the hall, headed for the door. At that point, the best I could do was to hobble after him. I really wasn’t built to take a beating. “Hersch, listen to me!” He wouldn’t even turn around.  “Hersch. Hersch!” I was apparently failing to muster up the appropriate rage in my voice, because he refused to even look back. “Hersch, calm the f**k down and talk to me!”

Hersch whirled around just short of the door, and gave me a glare that practically withered my soul. Then I realized Rebecca was right, what she had said that first night we got together. I was going to lose my best friend for her. I had the horrible, sinking feeling that I knew I had lost. In the best case scenario, I would only lose one of them. But Hersch really might take Rebecca away from me. I might walk away from this place alone and with Hersch hating me forever. I made one last run after Hersch. “Wait!” He slammed the door. Even with my last chance burst of energy, he was already outside by the time I made it to the end of the hall. The door swung shut and, hit my nose with a thwack. “S**t!” I pushed the door open blindly.

I looked up with stinging eyes to see, to my surprise, that Hersch hadn’t moved from the first stair. He was completely frozen, focused on the two people on the top of the landing.

It took me much, much too long to figure out what I was looking at. Hersch must have gotten it in a second, but I just stared like an idiot until it all came together. I barely even managed to figure out it was raining. The sky was yellowish gray, like a storm had come even though the sun was still out, and it was pouring rain. The weird weather distracted me from what Hersch was looking at. It looked like only one person for a second, because the one closest to us, lower on the stairs, was so big. But, no, there were two, another one at the very top of the landing. They were soaking wet. Gabe and Erich, my brain told me, though I didn’t process it. Why were they holding onto each other like that, just the two of them out in the rain? Were they fighting? They must be fighting.

No. They were kissing. Honest to God, full on, shamelessly kissing.

Hersch, who had seen it first, was obviously the first to react. He turned around, grabbed my shoulder, and yanked me back inside. We slammed the door behind us, and Hersch leaned against it, breathing like he had just run a mile. I caught myself on the wall and stared up at the ceiling, blinking as hard as I could, like that would convince me I hadn’t seen what I just saw.

Hersch and I looked at each other at the same time. His eyes were so wide I wondered how his eyebrows managed to stay on his forehead. We didn’t say anything for a really, really long minute. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. That had happened. That had really happened. Hersch raised one finger and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out for a long time.

Finally, he breathed like he hadn’t exhaled for five minutes. “You owe me a pound.”

That was as much as I could handle. There was just too damn much I had to deal with. I was so overwhelmed I just wanted to scream and fight and cry.

But instead, I laughed.

It came bubbling out of me before I could stop it, a wheezing, breathy laugh snaked out from between my lips. There was no stopping once I started. I felt ridiculous, laughing like an idiot. One look at Hersch told me that I was about to meet my death, but then I saw him fighting a smile. Then he laughed too, a funny, deep laugh I hadn’t heard before, shaking his head like he knew how stupid it was to find this funny. Hersch only made me laugh harder, and I had to clutch the wall for support while Hersch doubled over. His glasses were fogged up from the rain and slipping down his nose, which looked so funny I just about couldn’t control myself. I slid down to the floor and gasped for air. Hersch was holding himself up on the doorknob, bent all the way over. My sides hurt and my eyes were watering, but all I could think was that I could never, ever stop laughing.

“Yeah,” I gasped when I could finally form coherent words. I dug in my pocket and found my last coin. “I do.” I flipped the coin off my shaking thumb and Hersch caught it in the air.

Hersch shook his head, pocketing the coin and letting out one more chuckle. I looked at him, trying to ask without saying out loud if we had to keep fighting. Hersch seemed to be wondering something similar. He sighed, “Look, Jim…”

“No, Hersch, listen to me,” I cut him off, at the risk of making him mad again. But he shut up for a second, just long enough for me to come back in. This was probably my one and only chance. I lowered my voice in the hopes that he would actually have to listen to me. “I love your sister, Hersch. Okay? Maybe we’re not in love like you and Kristen were. Hell, maybe we won’t ever be. From the way it sounds, I’ll consider myself lucky if I ever love anyone like you loved Kristen. But I do love Rebecca, and I really think she loves me. And just because no one will ever be in love like you were doesn’t mean no one should get the chance.” Hersch opened his mouth to argue but, miraculously, couldn’t seem to come up with anything to say. “Think of how much you loved her, Hersch, and tell me that you don’t want to give your own sister a fighting shot at having that too.”

Hersch didn’t look angry anymore. Worse, he looked heartbroken. His eyes got red and wet behind his thick glasses, and he slouched to the floor across from me. “I just can’t take it. I loved her so damn much. I can’t stand that anyone else thinks…”

I crawled over to his wall and gave him a pat on the back that was meant to be comforting but came off a little awkward. “I know you loved her. But going back to Poland won’t bring her back. Stay with me and Rebecca, okay? It will get better. You just need to stay here. We’ll figure it out.”

“I can’t!”

“Yes, you can!” I was finally turning this around, and I wasn’t about to let him talk himself back into leaving.

“But…”

“Herschel!” Rebecca appeared at the end of the corridor, looking frantically at us. She dashed down the hall. “Oh, God, don’t fight! Herschel, we were going to tell you. I’m sorry!” I had really never seen her so unglued. She really hated what this was doing to her brother.

“Rebecca, calm down,” I stood up and hugged her around the waist, intensely aware of Hersch’s eyes burning holes in the back of my head. “Hersch and I are just talking.” She took in the dried blood under my nose and looked completely unconvinced.

Hersch pushed himself to his feet. Now that Rebecca was here, he tried harder to hide that he was crying. He cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded croaky. “Do you really love him, Rebecca?”

Rebecca looked up at me, and I had a tiny moment of panic when I doubted what she would say. Hersch had absolutely succeeded in convincing me that she might just be using me until something better came along. But Rebecca smiled and touched my shoulder. “I do.”

I grinned much wider than the situation warranted and threw an arm around her shoulder. “So will you stay here with us, pal? For now?”

Hersch looked extremely unsure, and I was scared of what his answer would be. Then he shrugged with a funny half smile, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve. “Well I can’t leave you two alone, can I?”

I thought I would pass out from relief. It all worked out. I breathed out like I had been holding up an enormous weight. Hersch would stay with us, I could stay with Rebecca. Everything would be okay. Rebecca still looked concerned. “What about Erich and Gabriel? I could hear them fighting under my window.”

I looked at Hersch out of the corner of my eye. He patted the pocket where he now held the remainder of my money, stifling a smile. “Don’t worry about Gabe and Erich,” I snorted, “they’re just…” The door opened and the roar of the storm made all three of us jump. Erich slammed the door behind Gabe. Erich looked so happy. The huge smile looked seriously unnatural on his face. He took hold of Gabe’s face and pressed their foreheads together, their noses touching, like they would kiss again.

Hersch looked at me, and put out a hand to try and stop me from panicking. I was still getting used to all this. But Hersch seemed okay with it. Rebecca was clearly fine. Why should I be the only one who had a problem with Erich and Gabe being together? Reverend Morrell was wrong. Whatever the two of them had was as real and good as me and Rebecca or Hersch and Kristen. They had run into a burning building for each other. They were all each other needed. If being together was what it took to make them happy, so be it. There couldn’t be anything in the world wrong with that.

I finished my thought to alert them to our presence. “…fine.” It seemed like the right word to use, because it was exactly what we were. Everything had worked out, and we were all going to be fine.

Author's Note

Two chapters to go :)

Reviews

[Arianna]

i was almost jumping up and down at that point i was so excited. and nervous that they would never be friends. and that erich would freaking punch gabe in the face again...emily you put me on an emotional roller coaster and i love every second of it! that was a fantastic chapter and not just because gabe and erich were making out it was fantistic because it was....there are just no words, and im a writer...and you knocked the words out of me! anyway it was fantastic, i cant wait for the rest!